The Grape House

The realtor took us room to purple room
Diverse shades of the same bruise color

Some paintings in the house also featured grapes
On the kitchen table, a cluster of them, plus
Corks and wine bottle décor

The back porch was a series of steps on
Steps and I wondered how a tipsy person
Might navigate the challenge

As we moved through the structure
I could not erase images of portly Bacchus
Holding residence and spilling lavishly
On the one-time guests of the home

Using words like Catawba and Niagara
Sprinkled into the dough of conversation.

-- JD DeHart 

Photos at the Graveyard

We visited the graveyard often
Even though we knew no one
In the graves themselves
It was at the crest of a hill
As if to place the dead skyward
With my Polaroid camera, I would
Snap photos of the markers, hoping
And simultaneously not hoping
That in one of them there would be
The wisp or specter of a ghost
When the products popped out
There was always that moment
Of ethereal mystery as the image
Faded into firm being.

-- JD DeHart

Standby

Wait a moment says the click
Dull slumber, the lull of crowds
A spark, then darkness
Feedback of the microphone
Poison to impatient ears
The program will continue
For now, we pantomime
With uncertain, strange gestures
Waiting for the earth to resume.

-- JD DeHart

Dumb

Once blinded by love

Now blinded by tears

Now bind’d by fears

Not minded by peers

With no divinity above

I have only my years

-- Zaphron Richardson

A Rock Among Rocks

I find a small rock as I sit on the shore

And it whispers to me as a rock would whisper

Cold and hard and sprinkled with wear

It tells me I must have something to bear

For what is bore is in my grasp

A pebble from the waters of life and of death

It glistens with malice and obscures with clarity

The rock is no bigger than a thumb

Yet the ripple it makes as I toss it in

Reaches the unreachable in size

And shoots past the edge of time

And when all is dark and still

My eyes glisten with malice

My mind obscured with clarity

-- Zaphron Richardson

When Men Had to Marry

In 1956 April told Henry
her mother had told her
there's a time and a place
for that and the time

for that was certainly
not now but soon  
after the ceremony
after the reception

on their honeymoon
at Niagara Falls.
April hoped Henry
would like it for she

would be his as long
as his freckles  
danced the cha-cha
all over his nose.

-- Donal Mahoney

After Listening to World News Tonight

When the next emperor dies
and arrives in Hades
there will be great applause

from the other emperors who  
arrived there before him.
They will drop pitchforks,

kneel in bonfire and bow
to their newest colleague,
the one for whom Satan

now rises and offers
his throne so the new man
can reign in glory as

Emperor of Hades until
someone more evil arrives,
someone whose glee for war

harmed even more people,
people with little to lose
except for their lives.

-- Donal Mahoney

Seven (sort of) Haiku

summer’s mugginess
dragging my shadow
                 behind me
 

above the marsh
something birdish in the reeds
unseen wholesomeness

                    up
                    and
                    over
             April rain
     May sunshine   
                    a climbing vine  
                    purple blossoms

long-distance semi
and a rust-freckled trailer
they have done it all

cat on railing
again
the moon song

Nebraska hayfield
uncles, cousins, I and
grandma’s dinner bell

harbingers come
from far away
perhaps as far
as from inside
and darkness falls

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen

A Memory

A memory as she crosses the street...                                
   under heavy wool blankets in a
   small mountain cabin teasing
   with her breasts ‘just try to say
   no to these - and to this’ as
   she lowers her lips and chill
   midwinter drafts couldn’t touch
   the fire of our long embrace

Her stride is still long
   vibrant and confident
   
I call her name, she stops
   we could hug and talk
   and then...
   cars honking

We could walk
   each
   our own way...
   and yet...
    
Our stride is long
   vibrant and confident
   as we move toward us
   as we safely cross

As traffic begins
   moving again.

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen 

Two Untitled Poems

a fool for beauty
inside the art gallery
alongside my wife

when sight embraces
what a page can give
black within white
white within black
ardor of the embrace  
within poetic electric

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen

For The Love of Snow

View fullsize

I confess
That although
You say you hate it
I love the snow

I find magic
In its new, clean white
And the way the wind
Makes it seem alive

Alive as spirits
Dancing across the road
Or taking flight
From a roof

Snow transforms
The world
With the poignance
Of a black and white film

Shoveling does not bother me
Small price to pay
For such beauty

-- Tom Rubenoff

Pygmies and the Dalai Lama

I don't know the answer but
perhaps the Dalai Lama knows
the final resting place of pygmies

who live in jungles unexplored
and never hear a sermon from
a preacher, rabbi, or imam,

who live in huts, eat fruit and nuts,
think disappearing jets are birds
their arrows cannot reach.

What happens when they die?
I don't know the answer but
perhaps the Dalai Lama knows.

-- Donal Mahoney

It's Many Miles from Easy

It's many miles from easy to the end.
For some, the end is dawn. For others it's
the nightfall of imbroglio because

the end depends upon your ticket
and every ticket's punched one-way.
No round-trip tickets, save perhaps

for some who claim a mulligan,
who say they need another chance.
It's true that some may need a mulligan

if they leave without a destination,
while others know which port
they'll dock in. Or so they say.

When they arrive, however,
and find no hula skirts or leis,
they may gasp and cry, "Who knew?"

while somewhere in the clouds
a blinking neon sign proclaims
it's many miles from easy to the end.

-- Donal Mahoney

Tancred to Clorinda

It’s not as though I sued your swordsmanship,
or that your brutish tactics wouldn’t hurt
my pride, if you were burly as your grip.
Nor were you ever dangerously curt,
as when we fought while donning cuirassiers.
But incognito in the mail you’d worn
to skirt convention, troubadours and peers,
you opened dormant passions when I’d shorn
the armor that concealed your lithesome sex.
Accordingly my putative disgrace
before your pluck was checked. For you’d annex
with flair, a bent I ardently embrace
which, if you were a burly Amazon,
would make me keep my body armor on.
 
But what use breastplate I was wont to wear
against the darts of Cupid in a fray?
For brazenly you utilized my dare
as grist, till your impassioned will held sway
and stormed the portals of my heart’s divide.
And though I’m apprehensive of romance,
you forced me to dismount the steed I ride,
then pricked my sluggish passion with your lance.
Yet, though a bashful bridegroom, I’d be healed
had not a shroud replaced your bride’s trousseau,
when you were borne from battlefield with shield
that failed to block my frantic counterblow.
And so you die a warrior at peace
while my conflicted yearnings never cease.

-- Frank De Canio

Tacit Camouflage

Some gals are like a Venus flytrap plant.
This wasn't Nature's devious design.
Nor is it just because some women can't
give up the fruit that's budding on their vine.
They simply simulate the ones that can.
As such, a guy who's fly will take the bait
regardless of a gal's hair trigger plan.
And all the man trap has to do is wait.
It doesn't matter whether men just smile
at some coquette who smugly starts to text.
What if she's granted access down an aisle,
before she scowls - as if she had been vexed
by sexists with insidious intent?
Deft mimicry is hard to circumvent.

-- Frank De Canio

Sister George

            (in the movie:
“Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows”)   

The girl stares down a biker with a knife.
And chucking habits, nuns could bank upon
to smugly separate themselves from life,
she lets her gumption overpower brawn.
For even though he’s well-armed for a fight,
we never doubt it mitigates the fear
he has of doing more than sitting tight,
in the event her pluck will persevere.
It seems, as she implies, his biker clothes
do more than her black habit, to sustain
the substance that’s behind his steadfast pose.
A half-clad strumpet scarcely would constrain
the brash intentions of this macho male
with more allure than she does in a veil.

-- Frank De Canio

Revealed in Presence

When I walk with my senses
What voice whispers
“Hear that”
As a bird calls  
Or someone speaks a phrase

What voice turns a phrase
As I might turn
A jewel to make
Its facets sparkle
Reveal its inner patterns

What voice whispers
“See that”
As things arrange themselves
Into meaning
Before my eyes

That’s what I think
They mean when
My fellow humans say
You are never alone

-- Tom Rubenoff

First Robin

Saw Dolly Parton
sitting in a tree
first robin this Spring
singing with glee
telling all the swains
"It's me! It's me!"

— Donal Mahoney

Every Child Needs a Father

Back in sixth grade Billy hits a ball so far
it never comes down, as he tells the story now,
50 years later, drunk in a bar, talking with strangers.

He rounds the bases but doesn't touch home.
The catcher tags him and the ump says he's out.
Sitting in the stands, his father curses so

Billy runs away with the puppy he found
that his father says he cannot keep.
He hides in the forest but his sister squeals

about the cave he now calls home.
Around midnight, the puppy is sleeping
when Billy sees searchlights weaving in the dark

and hears cops shouting "Billy! Billy!"
The cops take him home and the puppy away.
Billy gets welts on his butt from a belt

and never plays baseball again but
every summer his father tells neighbors
some day my Billy will play for the Yankees.

-- Donal Mahoney

The Human Condition

Did I forgive her, you ask?
What a silly question.
Why wouldn't I forgive her?
The mother of my children,

she's been dead for years.
Our long war died with her.
Did I attend her funeral?
I'd have been a distraction.

But I pray for her,
the repose of her soul.
She belongs in Heaven,
no denying that, up front

in a box seat after all
she's been through.
If I'm lucky, I'll find
the side door to

Heaven unlocked.
I'll sneak in quietly
and if Peter doesn't  
throw me out, I'll sit

in the bleachers.
The question is,
will I wave if she
turns around?

-- Donal Mahoney